Shortly after buying the estate in Melikhovo, Anton Pavlovich Chekhov began to take care of a small pond.

Chekhov was worried that water would be scarce in the spring, and several times a day he threw snow into the pond.

Apart from tench, carp inhabited the pond in the spring, and Anton Pavlovich was going to make it a flow-through pond and breed sterlet in the future. In fact, he dug a large pond behind the manor house, which became similar to an ichthyological station. “The home pond” was also greatly enlarged and deepened, and the soil was deposited at the fence. A nice hill was formed in this place, where the painter Levitan liked to work.

Anton Chekhov loved the very process of fishing, so he always “gave the constitution” to the fish he caught, by immediately releasing it back into the pond. He knew the intricacies of fishing, using various tackle: rods, seine, creel — a fishing tackle made of rods in the form of a funnel, and zherlitsa — a pike tackle.

In the first spring in Melikhovo, much had to be done anew, as the household was in disrepair. The Chekhovs worked together, improving both the house and the plot. Despite hardships, Anton Pavlovich loved country life and repeatedly admitted,

In his letters to almost all his acquaintances Chekhov mentioned the pond in which it was possible to fish from the window of the house. Some of his guests were brave enough to swim in the “aquarium”. The writer’s brother Mikhail Pavlovich recalled how the writers Pyotr Sergeyenko and Ignaty Potapenko came to Melikhovo during the first summer. Seeing the pond, which was not clean and had already begun to turn green, Sergeyenko climbed into it and started to swim.